Draft EU directive on software patents withdrawn

European Parliament rapporteur Arlene McCarthy has withdrawn the draft
directive on software patents. The directive will now go back to the
committee stage for some more work. A new vote is scheduled for the
plenary sessions between 22 and 25 September.

Even though officially the European Patent Office does not allow for
patents on software, many trifle software inventions and business methods
have already been accepted. For example, on 26 August 2002 Nippon Electric
filed a patent-request for webshops with customer log-in functionality.

Many internet-users, programmers, economists and owners of small and
medium sized companies, united in the Eurolinux Alliance and the
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) fear that the
Directive will legalise this practice, with a stifling effect on
innovation.

In response to the loud public outcry with open letters to parliament from
businesses and scientists, a demonstration, and a petition signed by more
than 240.000 people, McCarthy published a factsheet about the draft. In
the factsheet she explains that she has been the victim of a
"misinformation campaign" and is in reality championing the protesters'
cause. She denies the directive will enable U.S. style unlimited
patentability of algorithms and business methods such as Amazon's
'one-click' shopping. "In fact the Parliament's objective is to stop the
drift by the EPO and national patent offices to patent business methods.
The Parliament's proposal is stronger than current law and practice of the
EPO and is explicitly excluding the patentability of business methods and
algorithms with the introduction of a new article and recitals,
specifically Article 4a and recitals 13a and 13c."

The FFII however states that 'one click' shopping would be patentable
without any doubt under the final terms of McCarthy's Legal Affairs
Committee. The controversy centres around the explanation of the word
'technical'. According to FFII any business method can be patented, as
long as it is presented as a solution to a technical problem.

To underline the fact that Europeans can expect a plethora of trivial
patents on business methods, on 1 September the German Linux community
LIVE, together with the anti-globalisation group ATTAC, filed a patent on
petitions on websites.